Mary Robinette Kowal

The simplest way to describe Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Calculating Stars and its sequel, The Fated Sky, is as an alternative history of the American space programme. But that’s not all it is: it’s a story about a young Jewish woman with an anxiety disorder using all the tools at her disposal to gain a place for herself in the astronaut programme, and building coalitions with other women to bring them with her.

Courtesy of the magnificent folks at Tor.com, more books for me to talk about in my column have arrived. That’s Melinda Snodgrass’s EDGE OF RUIN and EDGE OF REASON, Mary Robinette Kowal’s VALOUR AND VANITY and OF NOBLE FAMILY, Alex Bledsoe’s LONG BLACK CURL, and Fran Wilde’s excellent UPDRAFT.

You might notice that the picture also contains a smiling villain. The cat insists the chair is his. I had to work around him.